JoyBody is NOT...

I use the word JOY in the way mystics have traditionally used it across many traditions.

It doesn't mean happiness or silliness or any sort of BIG expressed, giddy sort of emotional state. It's the ground of your being. It's the ground of all existence.

It's the feeling that we have when we are centered and residing in the space in ourselves that knows it is a good thing to be living this life no matter what is happening. It's actually quite... calm, steady, abiding... it feels a lot like long deep breathing.

There are as many ways to access this state as there are human experiences and that is where tantra comes in for me. Tantra is an understanding of life that says that every single thing you take in via your senses is a gift that we can learn from, that we can grow from.

So tantra never denies bodily needs and desires like so many paths do. There's no "transcending." There's being right here IN THIS.

This does NOT mean that SHIT doesn't happen. It doesn't mean that SHIT isn't SHITTY. It doesn't mean there aren't UBER SHITTY humans on this planet making UBER SHITTY choices.

It means that if we are settled in our joybody we can, after processing and being truthful and expressing what needs to be expressed, we can find even just a small something of value for ourselves. After the fact.

The universe and life aren't here to "teach you lessons." Open minded and inquisitive people turn life INTO lessons.

So when I ask you about joy even in this current context of craposity, I mean, dig a little under that. Are you breathing today? Then there's something for you under the crap.

THIS is LIBERATING your joybody.

JoyBody Morning Quickie: 6 Week Online Kundalini Yoga for an Open Heart

According to yoga tradition and philosophy, we are in a time period when things are very skewed. (And they don’t just mean 2020.)

We’re in a time when the typical spiritual practices are either too difficult for people to comprehend or just not effective because of the depth of despair and disbelief and disconnect that humans are experiencing.

During this time, tantra yoga practices are what humans need. They’re concrete. They’re easy to grasp. They’re grounded in the physical world more than any of the others. They’re effective QUICKLY.

And so we have Kundalini yoga.

And I DO believe that this is the yoga we need right now.

We need a yoga that can quickly affect our mind and heart and spirit via body practices that are accessible to all bodies with barely any modification.

This yoga clarifies immediately. Even a short practice, takes away my brain fog.

This yoga clears the heart immediately. No matter what’s on the news, after a quick Kundalini practice I feel like I can handle life again.

This yoga activates the body powerfully. I feel like a different person after a mere ten minutes and I feel ready to tackle whatever needs to be tackled.

This is the yoga of the heart based warrior.

PLEASE READ ALL THE HOWS AND WHATS BELOW CAREFULLY!

WHAT YOU GET:
ACCESS TO TWO 20 MINUTE PRACTICES A WEEK, WHICH YOU CAN WATCH LIVE OR YOU CAN WATCH THE RECORDING WHEN YOU HAVE TIME. IT’S ALL UP TO YOU.

You can also REPEAT the material as much as you want. Each class will stay up in the group for the entire month and a bit beyond.

You also have access to ME. You can ask for help ANY TIME in the group.

HOW:
YOU HAVE TO BE ON FACEBOOK.

MUSIC will be provided in the group prior to the class via Spotify and YouTube lists.

You’ll be added to a “Morning Quickie Yoga” PRIVATE group.

TIME ZONE: I’m in the Eastern U.S. Time Zone. For those of you for whom that might not mean much, I’m in the same time zone as New York City.

ALSO NOTE: Classes, though online, START ON TIME. You can jump in late, but I won't be waiting.

COST: $70 for 6 weeks of 2 quickie classes
TIME: 10:30 AM
Tuesdays: October 13, 20, 27 and November 3, 10, 17
Thursdays: October 15, 22, 29 and November 5, 12, 19

Morning Quickie: Kundalini Yoga for Your Unique Bones

No two downdogs (or whatever) should ever look the same!

You skeleton is unique to you and your yoga should be too.

This twice a week, four week session, starting Tuesday, September 15th, will be a combination of all the yoga I’ve studied for almost 25 years, with a special emphasis, as usual on Kundalini. Each week, we’ll deep dive into a couple of traditional hatha postures and different ways to approach them depending on YOUR skeleton.

By Monday each week, I will post in the private Facebook group which postures we’ll be deconstructing so you have time to say “HEY! This is how I struggle with ((fill in the blank))!” I can then tailor our classes to specific needs.

PLEASE READ ALL THE HOWS AND WHATS BELOW CAREFULLY!

WHAT YOU GET:
Access to TWO 20 minute practices a week, which you can watch live or you can watch the recording when you have time. It’s all up to you.

You can also REPEAT the material as much as you want. Each class will stay up in the group for the entire month and a bit beyond.

You also have access to ME. You can ask for help ANY TIME in the group.

HOW:
You have to be on Facebook.

MUSIC will be provided in the group prior to the class via Spotify and YouTube lists.

You’ll be added to a “Morning Quickie Yoga” PRIVATE group.

TIME ZONE: I’m in the Eastern U.S. Time Zone. For those of you for whom that might not mean much, I’m in the same time zone as New York City.

ALSO NOTE: Classes, though online, START ON TIME. You can jump in late, but I won't be waiting.

COST: $60 for 4 weeks of 2 quickie classes
TIME: 10:30 AM
Tuesdays: September 15, 22, 29, and October 6
Thursdays: September 17, 24, and October 1, 8

Be a Movement Rebel Fundamentals: Summer Session 2 (ONLINE)

WHERE: ONLINE, via Skype

TIME: Mondays, 5:30 to 6:40 PM (Eastern Time)

DATES: July 20, 27 and August 3, 10, 17, 24

HOW: For this session, you need to also be familiar with/able to use Spotify. It’s free. But I’ll be providing a music list BEFORE each class. While I’m teaching, ALL MICS MUST BE OFF, except for mine. You’ll be listening to the music at your end (providing more volumn and clarity) AND you’ll still be able to hear me (I’ll be using an earbud for my own music.)

COST: $80

REGISTER HERE

I’ve gone through a gazillion transformations with this work that started 11 years ago, and for the first time ever, I feel like I have finally found some ways to talk about it that really give you a feeling for what we are doing.

I am a Kinetic Liberator.

What the heck does that mean?!?

Well, it means about a thousand things, but to start, it means that I am here to guide you into your own body’s ways of moving in this world that will bring you to a place in which you are able to truly enjoy living in your body.

I’m here to guide you into a fuller relationship with your body via her unique vocabulary — not the vocabulary of someone else’s body or anyone else’s ideas of forms and postures and steps.

Also I’m here to make space for bodies that were often told they didn’t belong in certain places — like dance classes or yoga studios (I’m not saying ALL have been exclusionary BUT I am saying that far too many of my students have this shared experience).

I’m here to make space for different bodies to move in ways that have been culturally deemed “only for (insert body type).”

I’m here, too, to cut the cord connecting permission and a male or other gaze. Meaning, your body moving is for YOU… not for anyone else to “enjoy” or partake of in any way.

Besides how I’m here to guide you via your body, I’m here to help in another way:

I’m here to show you that you can literally MOVE YOUR CRAP, cut through all the old stories, build a new way of being, and that you don’t need to talk it all to death.

So that’s me… what’s the work for you?

I want you to embrace yourself as a Movement Rebel.

As a movement rebel, you come to each and every class with no preconceived notions.

You come with no mat, no shoes, no special equipment.

The only equipment you need is CURIOSITY and FASCINATION.

As a movement rebel, you know all you need is you.

What do we actually do?

From week to week, this evolves. Constantly. But there are some things that create a sense of familiarity so that we can be brave in the face of all that change:

We always start class on the floor, seated (though this can be done in a chair), and we always start with the breath and with a series of circular movements throughout the body.

This gets us grounded and settled and warmed up.

Then we explore individual body parts for a segment of the class. We might spend a whole song moving with just the hands, for example.

And finally, we get into more poetic work toward the end, using prompts designed to disconnect thinking mind so you can really get to know your rebel self.

LIBERATION IS THE WHOLE POINT

Are you ready?

If you REALLY believe mind and body are one: the #IamaBagofChemicals free monthlong challenge

Eleven years ago, I started to dance again, and it changed my entire life. In about six to 9 months it changed EVERYTHING.

After suffering from chronic, absolutely debilitating, and life-threatening depression cycles for over a decade, I suddenly was… not. The second I started to dance, this started to happen.

I was made to dance. We all are. But it was my extra special something. Yours might be hiking or cycling. Whatever it is, if it’s meant to save your brain from itself, it also will often look rather vigorous. 

I was committed once I felt the results, and I worked hard every single day because that’s what it took for me not to hate life to the point of not wanting to live.

Two to 3 hours of vigorous a day was my goal. 

No meds. They’d been awful to me at the onset and I never looked back (until recently but that’s another story).

Just hard work. Harder than most people want it to be, truth be told.

As I was doing this ALL FOR MY BRAIN, my body started to change. Duh.

In that 6 to 9 month period, I dropped about 5 sizes. Yep. That’s what the picture is for. This photo was taken 4 years ago. Around the time I met my now husband. 

By that point in my journey, I was downright HAPPY.

I was FITTER than I’d ever been but more importantly I felt ALIVE and CREATIVE in my body. I felt connected. I felt openhearted.

I felt more human than I ever thought possible.

I felt JOYFUL.

Fast-forward from that photo to about 2 years ago when I was thrown into a serious existential depression about life’s meaning and purpose following a complex set of circumstances including my father having a horrible stroke.

I stopped moving.

My mind got sluggish.

The chemicals started to work against me again.

And as was inevitable, my body started to change.

When it changed the first time around, it was a side effect of doing what needed to be done for my brain.

This time around, it was a side effect of NOT doing what needed to be done for my brain.

See that?

I’ve NEVER EVER used dance to “lose weight” or to “get strong physically” or any other reason totally about the body and aesthetics.

I move because it is a human imperative to move. It’s written into our genes. It’s the action of our entire selves right now to the cells themselves.

If you think you’re happy right now, for example, but you’re NOT moving, I guarantee there are happiness planes you’ve never seen before.

We are built to MOVE.

Period.

Our brain chemistry, our hearts, our lymph systems and on and on… none of it works OPTIMALLY if we aren’t moving. EVERY. DAY.

THIS is the mind body spirit connection that people love to babble on about.

But it’s much more real and more concrete than most like to admit. The spiritual wellness community loves to talk about this in the abstract.

No abstractions here.

MOVE or don’t be the YOU you were BUILT to be.

So for the month of July, every day, I’ll be running a free challenge to help you CHANGE YOUR BRAIN.

YOU are a BAG OF CHEMICALS and in one month, you can experience that like you never have before.

But it’s HARD.

So I need support to get going again. I’ve started a BIT but I need BIG.

If you ask, I’ll add you to a PRIVATE CLOSED Facebook group, where I’ll start two conversation threads a day: one where we can share wins/successes with words, photos, videos and another where we can share challenges/issues with the same.

I’m not there to teach you. I’m there to be in circle with you as we do this together.

I’m HERE on Facebook. Friend me first and then let me know you wanna work in this lab with me and others.

Our Culture is Trauma and We All Live on a Spectrum of Dissociation

Are you more aware of your head/brain than your entire body?

Dissociation...

I truly believe we are a culture of humans living on different points of a spectrum of dissociation.

Our culture is trauma inducing in its very makeup and the main way we cope is to exit our bodies. HOW we do this varies -- from alcohol consumption to the way we eat to TV to never moving to not listening to music (because it brings up FEELINGS) and on and on.

Before I started to dance again after I turned 40, I was one of the most dissociated people you'd ever meet.

I was blank in my eyes from my chronic depression but more than that...

I was a head being transported by a body that I did my best to ignore.

Or had learned to ignore.

I would go all day feeling angry and then realize I had NEVER PEED.

All these signals that bodies send... I just didn't hear them any more.

Here's the thing...

You don't just suddenly repair that.

I'm still working on it 11 years later at 51.

The other day I realized that EVERY SINGLE MONTH it's like I'm getting my period FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER because I can't remember SIMPLE THINGS...

Like, for example, my period actually EXHAUSTS me because I tend toward slight anemia on a good day. (And I thought I was entering actual menopause because of this disconnect too. That's another story.)

EVERY MONTH I think, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? WHY AM I SO TIRED? I NEED SOME SORT OF MEDICAL INTERVENTION!

Then POOF! I'm not tired anymore and I go, oh, right...just had my period.

DISSOCIATION.

I still can forget to pee.

I still can forget to EAT or god forbid... drink water.

I STILL forget the basic thing I TEACH -- that if you MOVE, you'll FEEL BETTER. Your brain will be clearer. You’ll have energy. Your mod will be less dark even in difficult moments.

So how about you?

What does your level of dissociation look like? How does it play out? What can we do to stop this?

Because stopping this? It's key to EVERYTHING.

People who are dissociated are easily turned into cogs in the wheel.

People who are NOT dissociated are ACTIVE and they CREATE THE WORLD THEY WANT because they know their own power.

Other Ways to Help

Besides educating ourselves on anti-racism and what that means in action and educating ourselves about the actual and true history of this country, we can and should help by handing our money to black artists and crafters beyond just the big names like Beyonce.

So here is a great list of black owned Etsy shops. Over one hundred of them!

Here’s a list of black American women fine artists. Do you know any of them?

And here’s a list of black American women writers. Have you read any of these? I have not…

This is a list of contemporary women of color poets.

Black contemporary choreographers (with internal links).

And this video under 2 minutes has my head full of ideas:

We Live in a Culture of Addiction & Dissociation and the Way Out is through the Body

We’ll start with a definition. Addiction is a coping mechanism/behavior that has negative consequences in your life.

Of course, part of the problem is that people don’t recognize negative consequences, in most cases, until they are severe or even life-threatening.

The old joke goes like this: A man jumps off a 30 story building and about halfway down he says, “SEE! This isn’t that bad!”

We live in a culture that encourages easy solutions, and you might be noticing it even more during this quarantine time — in yourself or even in your Facebook feed.

More drinking. More excuses for really poor eating even though it makes us feel like shit. More total days of nothing but bad TV.

We’re coping. But we’re not coping.

And even if we’re not engaging in an obvious addictive behavior, we’re dissociating from all the stress and the fear and the not-knowing and the discomfort.

We’re lying in bed paralyzed.

We’re going through motions but not noticing.

We’re barely reaching out.

We’re ignoring the terror in our belly and locking up all the things that we think we “can’t handle.”

Here’s the secret: We CAN.

But we have to be brave; we have to FEEL.

The true rebellion, the REAL REVOLUTION, would start from our bodies.

The true rebellion would be BEING IN THESE BODIES UNAPOLOGETICALLY. Which is the same fuckin' thing as BEING IN OUR LIVES UNAPOLOGETICALLY.

Which then allows space for all other humans to do the same.

THIS is how important it is that we do the work to not be a Walking/Talking HEAD in a Culture of Addiction & Dissociation.

FEEL. BE. DO. EXPAND.

FEEL. BE. DO. EXPAND.

FEEL. BE. DO. EXPAND.

People in their bodies and in their lives FULLY? They don’t accept a culture that says one life is worth more than another or a culture that puts economy over health and happiness.

They build something brand new and they don’t fear the work of it.

They accept nothing less of themselves or the structures around them.

To quote Toko-pa Turner:

“We think of rebellion as something we put to external service in the world: we become activists in protest of some wrongdoing, some injustice we must speak against. But I think there is a rebellion before the rebellion—a more intimate form of protest speaking from and for the devalued feminine.

The feminine has nothing to gain. She doesn’t vie for leverage. She doesn’t want to prove anything or achieve dominion. She does something infinitely more rebellious. She strips falsity and stirs up feeling in the anaesthetized heart. She awakens a kind of long memory throughout and beyond ages. She gives shape to the swelling and collapsing heart. That is all; but it is so much. Because when we sing with her voice, anyone who hears it remembers what they too have forgotten: that we are noble, and beholden to each other.

Rebellion is the pushback on that long-standing amnesia. Like nausea rejects a poisonous substance, rebellion wants to see what is beneath falsity. What is really enduring when all else is stripped away? What longing, if we undam it, might pound through our lives, bringing life to the dryness of an over-harvested creek bed within? What if there is a story coming through us which is trying to find its way into the world? If we can withstand the trials of exile, can we have the chance at turning that story into something that shows others that they aren’t alone?”